Walked into a shit show

[Melony17]

I’ve started a new job recently. Honestly, I’ve come in as the manager and staffing is diabolical. People are just going off left right and centre and not just for a day. For prolonged periods. I’m honestly losing the will with these people.

I don’t want to divulge what I do. But it’s a proper profession whereby attendance shouldn’t be this poor. It just feels like I’m managing a mess. I have nothing but hassle from the moment I walk in to the moment I leave. I left my old work place for this reason. And now I’ve picked up the same shit in a diff place.

Healthcare and teaching are two of the professions that had repeated exposure to Covid - and still are - yet have been expected to drag themselves into work before recovering properly.
Not only are they run-down and knackered, with traumatised immune systems, they're being subjected to continual resource cuts and top-down restructures. With several of their colleagues off sick at any given time, they're always picking up extra slack while being vilified by everyone from upper management to end users.

When will people stop using Covid as a cop out? If that were the case, it would be true in every country. It's not. It's a lazy argument.

I work in healthcare, I had exactly the same situation and the honour of having the highest sickness rate in the place! The policies are your best friend, follow them to the letter! It’s amazing what happens when staff see consequences. I now how the lowest sickness rate in the trust and in our recent staff survey I have the happiest workforce!

Whoa, maybe take this sass into your new workplace. Call a meeting and tell the staff you manage what the expectations are. You want to be a manager so manage the situation. Either that or run away to another job.

B@@@@@@ I work in healthcare! The pandemic was officially over in 2021, it’s time to stop using Covid as an excuse, it detracts from those genuinely suffering from long covid!

If it’s a profession linked to education not in England, PM me.

I have a coworker who’s had 100+ days off sick last year (no sick note) and somehow is still employed lol.

Some places are just dumpster fires.

Or they're just taking the piss.

When full pay runs out and you're back to work it doesn’t automatically mean you've been on a scam. I had to go back to work when my full pay ran out but hey it was only cancer I was dealing with.

Yeah same. I work in a university and people in my team do whatever they like. Off sick constantly, work from home even though it’s an in person job. They know they are basically unsackable

What do you mean 'going off'? Phoning in sick a day every week? Long term sick? In my experience, high sickness rates become engrained in a workplace culture and it is very difficult to unpick it. I've seen it in a workplace I had some involvement with (not my own job) and staff were unhappy, started going off sick, then everyone else started doing it because they felt why should they not be able to. Its got a bit better now with better HR processes but still not perfect and it feels like that culture is still there

This could be my workplace recently. People are going off because they’re overworked and stressed. You should be massively focussing on staff wellbeing and having honest conversations about the state of things and how to move forward.

1000 x YES!

I had this conversation with a colleague only yesterday. Some people do not realise how good a job they have and I'm quickly running out of patience with my team.

I do supply teaching.

It used to be covering for someone on a course or unwell for a week or on maternity.

Now it's a whole different ball game. It's like walking in to a war zone sometimes. When schools can't recruit, nobody is doing the planning. The staff who are still there can't explain to a new person every few days what's happening so you are just left to it.

I sympathise, I’ve seen both kinds of workplaces in these environments - the genuinely overworked/burnt out team, and the team with ingrained sickness culture and ultimately a bad attitude. You’ll need to work out which one you’re dealing with to give you a focus. I would recommend sticking to any policies by the letter either way, it ultimately makes it fairer. Is your team part of a big enough organisation that you can compare your teams rate with others (be careful with this if you have long term people off with things like cancer as you don’t want them to feel blamed!)?

Ultimatelt it’s about building ownership and a sense of pride in their work and team. Have you asked them for any ideas they have for improvements for the area they’re in? Sometimes you can find a quick buy in moment win, but they often need a bit of creative thinking!

Hi all how long does careers allowance take to come though? No income just DLA and uc. I know waiting times vary but anyone who applied recently please can you let know how long you waited so I have a rough timescale

Working in education is dire at the moment. Morale is at rock bottom and combined with really low capability means it’s an absolute s&&t show at the moment.

my best advice is keep detailed timeline of everything and support you are putting in place and then follow either the performance management or the sickness policy to a T.

Hang on in there with those two policies in your top drawer and eventually you’ll get them to either leave or perk up.

I work in HR and managing absenteeism is one of our big jobs. Here are my suggestions
Ensure you have a clear timekeeping and attendance policy including a process to follow for employees when they are off sick.e.g. must phone in at least one hour prior to the start of their shift, must provide a doctors cert on day 3 etc.

Ensure you have rules around absenteeism leading to a disciplinary process. e.g. 3 absences in 3 months means an absence mtg, continuing violations of the rules will continue the disciplinary procedure etc.
Carry out return to work interview after all absences.
Meet monthly with anyone on Long term absence, send them to Oc health if necessary.
You will always have absenteeism but following strict procedures will help to manage it and will help to reduce it.

Nice to meet you Mrs X.

Amazing!!

Sickness levels are high in workplaces that have good sick pay policies.

It's completely coincidental.

Ime NHS managers don't have a clue on managing staff.
It's always the same staff who are off sick over the flimsiest issue and they know the protocol better than the managers.
They should all work in employment law because they've got it down to a fine art.

Actually OP this isn’t your problem. These people aren’t working for you- you don’t own the place! You work for the organisation. So make this someone else’s problem.

Create a spreadsheet of key offenders showing their role and their time off in the last 12 months.

create an additional tab of the costs this is incurring, such as supply teachers or temps etc.

Call a meeting with your boss and HR and present them with the evidence. Tell them that their key issue is sickness absence as you’ve identified.

Think of a few options of how they could deal with it eg performance managing people out of the business, seeking legal advice about letting people go. Redundancies to get key offenders out. Improving working conditions to prevent illness absences.

Then leave the problem with them and continue to do your best.

If you’re at a level where the decision is yours then make the decision yourself. But if you’re people managing then (no offence) but you’re probably not senior enough to make decisions about redundancies/ restructuring etc.

Good luck.

I don’t know where you work but I can assure you not all universities are like this.

I used to work in HE and managed a dept.

Yes, you can sack people using the performance management route and it’s not that difficult if you stick to the process and get HR to do their job too.

However, you can turn some people round if they haven’t been well supported in the past and they can change and become great team workers.

If it's education you work in then I am not surprised by people being off sick constantly! I have recently escaped a 20 year career in the education sector and can honestly say on reflection it was the most stressful and toxic environment to work in. I now have a job where I don't have the threat of physical assault every day or a system that expects me to accept violence as 'part of the job'.

@Melony17 Firstly congratulations on your new job, next you do have a bit of a mountain to climb but that does not mean it is impossible. I am the CoG of a four form entry primary school and we started to attack this before Covid as we had an issue with TAs and a smaller issue with teaching staff. We divided the staff between our business managers and started applying the policies firmly and fairly, back to work interview, Occupational Health etc and for some contract reviews by a GB panel. The key was consistency and conversation, if we could talk to staff before they started to go off sick, it really helped. They realise that if they throw a sickie they are putting a burden on colleagues, but if they are genuinely sick, staff know that they will get our full support. Timekeeping is also monitored and there are escalation points from the SBM to SMT and ultimately the HT. For us, it works because they know where they stand and how the policies will be applied.